Chapter 1: Making an Effort – Day 1: Steps 1-3

"Let's make an arcade first!" Crazy Hand burst out. Master Hand shook no.

"World creation is serious business, Crazy," he lectured. "It's a step by step process and if we mess it up our world could end up being terribly boring." Crazy Hand let out a gasp.

"Boring!"

"Yes," Master Hand nodded, glad to have caught his interest. "Boring." Or messed up otherwise… He conjured up another book and showed it to the other hand.

"'World Creation 101'," Crazy Hand read. "That's the one with all the puppies, right? I love puppies!"

"No. It's about world creation."

"Oh."

"Step 1," the right hand recited off the first page. "Choose the locale. If you're just making a planet, anywhere will do. But for world creation, it is important that you make your world in an empty void." He looked at the dark space around them; the choice was obvious. "Yeah it's pretty empty here isn't it? Let's just move on. Step 2: Draw a diagram of your earth."

"Already on it!" Crazy Hand yelled. Master Hand floated over to the kitchen, where Crazy Hand was laser-inscribing a picture on the table. Suppressing his anger, he glanced at what his brother had made–and now appeared to be painting, no less. It was a purple cube-shaped object. The top face had a large black circle in the center. There were three smaller circles on the corners around it–one of them white–that looked to be buttons of some sort. A black line connected the smaller circles in a square shape. The rest of the faces were blank.

"Ok what is that?" Master Hand asked; he had no idea what to make of the odd picture.

"An object I saw once in a dream…" the left hand whispered distantly. The Hand of Creation stared at him for a moment, trying to come up with something suitable to say, before giving up and going off to draw a diagram of his own.

Every planet I've ever seen is circular, he thought to himself. Must be a requirement; the book doesn't say anything about it. He drew a large circle on the page, and smaller circles within it; the book had reminded that planets needed layered interiors. The basic template used by most planets, it stated, was an inner and outer core, a mantle, and crust. That was relatively easy, the hand mused. Next he had to think about size. "'Size matters.' …What's that supposed to mean?" He read on quizzically. "'Make it big.' Oh." Turning around, he called out, "Crazy, how big should we make this thing?"

"Ginormous x 8!"

"…Sounds about right." He wrote the "number" down next to his drawing. "Ok, Crazy. Step 3: Make the earth itself."

"Ok!" Crazy Hand shot a missile into the dark space, destroying a star in the process. Master Hand sweatdropped. That's right; he's the Hand of Destruction…

"How about I take this one?"

"But this is the least important step! Let me tryyyy!" the lefty pleaded.

"This is the first step! It's vital to the whole process!"

"There are only two of us in this world, MH. Two large floating hands. Do you really care what the earth we make looks like? I mean, you already drew the diagram so the rest will be easy," Crazy Hand stated. Master Hand gawked at him.

"That was strangely rational of yo–"

"Pancakes!" Crazy Hand yelled.

"Never mind… Here just follow the diagram…" The right hand handed the hand-drawn image to the left hand handily. "It's pretty easy to understand. Those are the inner layers of the earth, got it? And they're all made of different materials. There's a list of elements in the Appendix of the book so I think if we just choose the right combination we should be fine. Are you even listening to me, Crazy?"

"Yessum. I'll start rightttt nooowww!" He rocketed out into the space and began his job. Master Hand watched him flit about, growing more doubtful by the second.

Should I really let him do this on his own? What if he messes up? What if he destroys the whole dimension by accident? Worse, what if he does it on purpose? He didn't want to think about it. But what if he gets hurt in the process? Mom would kill me if I let him get hurt. He shuddered. With that in mind he hovered slowly over to his brother.

"What have you done so far?"

"I've been working on the railroad all the livelong day!" he responded cheerfully.

"It's been five minutes."

"Yup! And I know exactly what to make these layers out of!"

"Oh! That's great!" It seemed like Crazy Hand was making good progress after all.

"The innermost layer is gonna have strawberry filling, then a layer of chocolate cake and a layer peanut butter, and the top layer will be cheese and sprinkles!"

"Wha-" LAYERS. You're doing it wrong.

"SHUT UP STUPID NARRATOR! NOBODY WANTS YOU!" Crazy Hand yelled into the void. "So anyways brother, doesn't it just fill you with so much JOYNESS?" He danced around the other hand, tossing his sprinkles up in the air.

"That's not exactly the word I would choose for it," his brother responded. "Why don't I…give you a hand? It'll make things go more smoothly, to say the least."

"Joyness."

They labored for hours, arguing over specifications every now and then, at which point Crazy Hand would go on a tantrum and destroy some parts, which they would then have to rebuild. After they took occasional breaks to grab small snacks and refreshments, and once for lunch. Slowly, their earth was coming together. It wasn't until early evening that they finally finished. They stood back to admire their work; their gloves were soiled and tattered in places, but it wasn't that big a concern for them at the moment.

"FIST POUND!" Crazy Hand shouted. The two hands punched together.

"It looks great, doesn't it?" Master Hand nodded as his brother zoomed towards it. He lost sight of the psychotic hand as he circled the globe, but he came back into view several minutes later. As he drew nearer, his exhilarated singing grew louder and louder.

"I can fly really fast!" the Hand of Destruction exclaimed as he finally returned. "Did you see me? Huh? Huh?" His fingers twitched frenziedly. "Around the world in eighty seconds at the speed of light!"

"Actually you took about ten minutes," Master Hand told him realistically. "And you were probably going about 90 mph average. And it's not even that big at all."

"…Party pooper," Crazy Hand mumbled. But it was true; the earth was only about the size of a medium-sized comet. "Why the heck is it so small?" Master Hand retrieved the book and flipped to the page he'd bookmarked.

"Step 3: Make the earth itself in a scale model," he read. "'You should be able to travel the circumference of your model in no more than thirty minutes at your average speed.' You were going way faster than your average speed, so you obviously took less time."

"It mocks me with its tininess," Crazy Hand stated in a maniacal voice. He readied his bombs. "I shall destroy it now."

"No, no, nonono!" Master Hand rushed in front of him. He grabbed the bombs and threw them as far away from the miniature earth as he could. Letting out a sigh of relief, he turned to his brother exasperatedly. "Are you crazy or something?" he fumed, a large blast exploding in the far background. Crazy Hand nodded jubilantly, and Master Hand had to hit himself with the book again. Without another word he floated back to his residence for a well-deserved rest.

"Wait for me, MH!" Crazy Hand called out as he began to follow him. The right hand took a quick glance back. "We were gonna have spaghetti tonight! Remember? REMEMBER?" A demonic look crept up on the crazy hand's hypothetical face, and his brother hurried to reach the door, not daring to look back again. "SPAGHETTI FLAMBÉ!" Crazy Hand yelled, doubling his speed; he hated being ignored. "AND MEATBALLS!" He hurtled towards the other hand at breakneck speed, which was actually just fine for him.

I just wanna go to bed, the Hand of Creation thought miserably as he tore towards his home. Except that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. I hate you. In fact, he wasn't going to get any sleep for hours. I really, really hate you right now. Not only that, but he'd be forced to listen to his brother's obnoxious singing all night LONG. Crazy Hand was right; nobody wants you. And speaking of Crazy Hand, he was quickly catching up, ready to pounce the Hand of Creation, probably to force him to eat pasta. …I did this to myself, didn't I? It was going to be a very long night for Master Hand indeed.